heir heads, the
reason being that their enemies might not grip them by the hair in
close fighting. I regret, my dear Sir John, you never warned me that
you designed Prosper for a military career. We might have bestowed
more attention on the warlike customs and operations of the
ancients."

My father sipped his wine and regarded the Vicar benevolently.
For closest friends he had two of the most irrelevant thinkers on
earth and he delighted to distinguish between their irrelevancies.

"But I would not," he continued, "have you doubt that the prime cause
of our expedition is to deliver my lady from the Genoese; or believe
that Prosper will press his claims unless she acknowledge them."

"I am wondering," said my uncle, "where you will find your other four
men."

"Prosper and I will provide them to-morrow," my father answered, with
a careless glance at me. "And now, my friends, we have talked
over-long of Corsica and nothing as yet of that companionship which
brings us here--it may be for the last time. Priske, you may open
another four bottles and leave us. Gervase, take down the book from
the cupboard and let the Vicar read to us while the light allows."

"The marker tells me," said the Vicar, taking the book and opening
it, "that we left in the midst of Chapter 8--_On the Luce or Pike_.

"Ay, and so I remember," my uncle agreed.

The Vicar began to read--

"'And for your dead bait for a pike, for that you may be taught
by one day's going a-fishing with me or any other body that
fishes for him; for the baiting of your hook with a dead
gudgeon or a roach and moving it up and down the water is too
easy a thing to take up any time to direct you to do it.
And yet, because I cut you short in that, I will commute for it
by telling you that that was told me for a secret. It is this:
Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of spike, and therewith anoint your
dead bait for a pike, and then cast it into a likely place, and
when it has lain a short time at the bottom, draw it towards
the top of the water and so up the stream, and it is more than
likely that you have a pike follow with more than common
eagerness. And some affirm that any bait anointed with the
marrow of the thigh-bone of a heron is a great temptation to
any fish.

"'These have not been tried by me, but told me by a friend of
mine, that pretended to do me a courtesy